ADLIB Supplies NME/Radio 1 stages at Leeds & Reading

Liverpool, UK, based ADLIB Audio's festival run continued, supplying the NME/Radio 1 Stages at both sites for the Reading & Leeds Festivals.

The brief for these enormous tented venues included the provision of sound for outdoor areas left, right and to the back of the tents as well as the standard system inside.

ADLIB sent a crew of 6 to each site, with Marc Peers crew chiefing Leeds and James Neale in Reading.

The PA systems were near identical for both sites, allowing the line ups to flip-flop between locations, some great teamwork between ADLIB's 2 crews – who exchanged showfiles, notes, patch and settings information, right down to the mic lists - enabled all the artist's second nights to run like clockwork. It also ensured they enjoyed complete continuity in sound and mixing conditions for both performances.

Twin Systems

With a normal set up inside and 3 large video screens outside the tent (one either side and one at the back) to increase the audience viewing capacity, getting the sound spot-on became a more complex task.

The main system comprised 8 x L-Acoustics K1s a side, each column flown off a mast structure, complete with 3 x d-V underhangs. Some serious bottom end was offered up by 8 x SB28s and 4 x K1 subs a-side, all on the ground. The SB28s were in 2 stacks of 4, run in cardiod mode for additional effect and coverage.

Six ARCS were used for in, out and centre fills and at the back of the FOH tower, they installed 3 x dV-DOSCs left and right for delays covering the back of the tent.

Outside, the left and right video screens were each accompanied by a stack of 6 x Kudo speakers, positioned to be level with the downstage edge of the inside PA hangs. These were ground stacked on their flying frames, sitting on a scaffolding structure. The rear video screen was serviced with 3 Kudos a- side (6 in total).

The FOH consoles were Midas Heritage H3000s, spec'd by the client and chosen for the fact that most sound engineers in the world are familiar with this classic mixer. ADLIB has used the H3000 very successfully on other festivals for the same reasons and apart from this and its reliability, it's very much a “Safe Bet”, Headliners Pendulum, The Klaxons and LCD Soundsystem all brought in their own consoles.

For monitors, ADLIB supplied Yamaha PM5D consoles which is now a company festival standard.

Sixteen ADLIB MP3 wedges and 2 x d-V drum subs provided monitor coverage, together with Nexo Alpha sidefills. A 4-way Sennheiser G3 IEM system was also available, together with a full mics-and-stands package geared for all eventualities.

All the L-Acoustics elements were powered by LA8 amps, with Labgruppen PLM10000Qs driving the wedges, networked with the onboard Lake processing.

Working alongside Peers in Leeds were Richy Nicholson (monitors), Mike Flaherty and Tommy Bradshaw (patch), with Tony Szabo (FOH) and also Pete Seddon taking care of the outside elements.

In Reading, Neale's team consisted of Ben Booker (monitors), Phil Down and Dave Davies looking after the stage, plus Otto Kroymann and Simon Fuller, who co-ordinated the FOH.

With 11 bands a day, the schedule was full on! All had their own engineers, and some additional monitor consoles also turned up – sometimes unexpectedly – and had to be integrated into the system which kept everyone on their toes and made the patch a particularly hectic gig!

As always, the ADLIB crew delivered a great sounding system, a thoroughly efficient service and lots of smiles & camaraderie in a hardworking but fun environment where they now have the workflow down to a fine art.